


And you let her go

by cassiopeiasara



Series: Infinite Playlist of Ships [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Regina centric, angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6180178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiopeiasara/pseuds/cassiopeiasara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in season 3. Regina’s thoughts post counteracting Pan’s curse and when Emma and Henry return. </p><p>
  <i>She felt as if she was always destined to say goodbye to the people she loved. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	And you let her go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hylen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hylen/gifts).



> A/N: In response to tumblr prompt: ""Let Her Go" Passenger / Swan Queen"
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and seek no profit.

Regina can’t bring herself to explain to Snow that the urge to bury her heart is about so much more than missing her son. It’s true that if you divided her heart in pieces and labelled the names of all the ones she’d ever loved, Henry’s would take up the most space. But there would be another, one that slowly increased in size when she wasn’t looking. One she would have never seen coming.

If asked when she knew she loved Emma too, she would answer that it came out in “My gift to you is good memories,” and perhaps stirred in moments like “We need to talk to our son.”  _Our son_ , she recalled with a heaviness she knew all too well. It was like the hopeful future she and Daniel planned. She should know better than to wish for things. She always ended up with memories. Memories instead of the beautiful moments that made up a happy life. She felt as if she was always destined to say goodbye to the people she loved. It was her fate it seemed. 

Snow couldn’t understand because through every hurdle and every universe, she and David were together. They loved Emma and Henry but they could weather their longing in the comfort of each other. As much as Snow would insist they were there for Regina, they couldn’t understand. If Regina could stew in bitterness, it would be a comfort but she’d been down that road and it wouldn’t bring them back. She accepted this truth and marched on to a life without the promise of the family she never knew she’d always wanted. 

* * *

She sees him first. He’s taller now and his voice a touch deeper but he’s her boy with his dimples and the side swoop to his bangs that she hoped would never go away. As much as the sight aches and takes her breath away, it’s Emma that makes her heart feel as if it might beat out of her chest. 

Her face is so open and so utterly apologetic and it’s as if the entire evolution of their relationship hits Regina all at once. She’d longed for this. She could have gone on forever just her and Henry, a family as they’d always been but it hits her then that Emma belongs with them. She belongs here. Emma promises to help, find a way to figure everything out and Regina believes her with a faith and trust she wouldn’t have just two years ago.

In the months that follow, the battles and the schemes, she has so many opportunities to tell Emma. She wants so much to ask if she’s just imagining things but she can never say it. Regina’s voice always falters or something more pressing happens and she wonders so many times if her life will continue to be a loop of heart wrenching goodbyes.


End file.
